Gunforce (Arcade)

I bet every gamer know Contra, the game about a lone (or two) soldier battle against trooper, advanced war machine, and finally savage aliens. Needless to say, that Contra is pioneer of run'n'gun genre. That Konami's game is famous also well-sold product. Thus, no wonder other game companies try to imitate Contra. One of them is Irem and it made GunForce (1991) as contra-clone its version of contra.

"Battle Fire Engulfed Terror Island" subtitle is like cheesy B-Movie's title, don't you think. You probably know that some Irem's staff formed Nazca Co. that made Metal Slug 1. So Gunforce is quite promising, isn't?! We will see about that.

The game begins with scene about the lone soldier drop from plane (with parachute of course) to the middle of said Terror Island. Strange thing is no AA gun barrage as respond to this drop. Probably, the enemy haven't installed any Anti-Air measure because of laziness or tardy budget. Lucky for us.     

Shortly after the drop, the lone soldier/i (the one with blue sleeve and blue lower trouser) run into action. The controls are directional button for aim, move & crouch , 1 button to shoot, and another button to jump. The player die by one hit from bullet/explosion/collision with enemy vehicle. So far so similar with Contra.

You can see from this screenshoot, that there is HUD/Indicator that have symbol like (triple) fast forward and i carry Light Machine Gun unlike puny assault rifle from previous screenshot. That's because i picked Auto power-up that allow me to shoot rapidly by holding the shoot button.  So rather than 3-way shoot or homing rocket from Contra, extra arsenal in Gunforce feels more realistic. Also no dead-by-collision-with-enemy-troop rubbish here. You can safely pass enemy troops unless they suddenly do deadly CQC on you. By that, i mean shooting you in point blank range not some neck-breaking move or other move that any Snake can do.

"Get into the choppa!" Another thing that different from that Konami's run'n'gun is you can aboard various combat vehicle like that heavily-damaged jeep and the helicopter each with their own weapon. I know that Contra III or Contra: Hardcorps also let the player ride on vehicle. But in Gunforce, you have more degree of freedom in picking the vehicle and that's big plus for me. It seems that the helicopter's turret has integrity control with pilot, so i move and aim in same direction only. The helicopter can take not-so-many damage before it explode but when enemy's shoot precisely hit the player, he die leaving the helicopter vacant. So when in helicopter, the player isn't 100% save from one-shoot-dead. This mechanic same goes to other vehicle. Pretty realistic yet fair to me.

Briefly after destroying  a lot of enemy soldiers that most of them are on foot, some on turret, some wear jetpacks, other in jeep and other in helicopter, i encounter the first boss: this big machine. Its weakness is those orbs that attached to it. The main ones is the triplet that on top center and below writing "core" complete with small direction arrows. It seems that enemies forgot to erase the "core" hint after they finish construct this machine. Thus showing how incompetent fools they are. The boss attacks are green laser that shoot from the side cores and 3-way orb from the main cores. Both of those attack are semi-tracking the player's position so you need to be careful. My strategy are: finishing the right side core, then stand on the right corner shooting diagonally toward the main cores and occasionally jump to evade their 3-way shoot. Almost forget to mention that the soldier can aim diagonally by simply tapping the up direction button. To aim upward, hold the up direction button. Pretty simple yet handy.    

Another different feats. from Contra is this intermission after finishing a level shows a communication from our hero to his leader who sits comfortably in HQ. By the way i don't like the googles that the hero wear because it makes him looks like dorky nerd that pretend to be cool guy with colored eyeglasses or like welder who wear below-safety-standard eye protection that is common in my country, Indonesia. Wear futuristic visor, man!

Stage 2 takes place in enemy supply depot. I found this cart that runs on rail and has machine gun turret. Wheee!

Pyro_laughhappy01.wav. Ehm! Sorry. My happy-to-burn innerself start to kick in whenever i can incinerate not-real people or creature. After i walk through the supply depot that has conveyor belt, crates, railway and enemies, i meet the 2nd stage boss here. Troops on windows will throw destroyable grenade and if one of them perishes another one will replace him. The turrets are semi-tracking you and shoot but can be destroyed permanently. The main weakness of this boss is the core in top-middle that don't do anything except exists. So destroy all turrets, then the core also kill the troops sometime!

Next stage is communication tower. Once the tower down, the enemies can't contact their families & relatives leaving them in the deep worriness, despair, and sadness. Brilliant! That's what they get to allow one of their family/relative join the evil force. By the way, i wield bazzoka that shoot blue fireball this time.

To reach said communication tower, you have to climb cliffside jump through series of platform and ride cable cars. You can also hang on the cable and move forward. But that's really no fun, isn't?!

Level 3 introduces you with this enemy. He and his kin have developed more advanced CQC than other enemies so far. That is: try to ram you with his torpedo/rocket/missile thus killing both of you and him. Also he can jump and climb ladder so be carefull!

See! He really can climb ladder despite the explosive burden that he carry. He and his kin is deserved to be promoted everytime they succeed on their "kamikaze" attempt. You got to admire their determination and strength, you know?! Another type of enemy is the one with yellow uniform like those in side platforms. When he got shot, he turn into cyborg (like the one in right) and shoot rapidly. Just shoot him more and that T-1000 wannabe is terminated. There is another enemy type that don pale blue uniform that fall over whenever he got shot first time and die if he got another shot. By the way, every enemy die with explosion. How about the hero? He keel over (more like having chronic stomachache IMO) and blink from existence because he is the good guy, you see?!

At the end of ladder that i climb in previous screenshoot, is stage 3 boss. 4 radars that charge red orb for moment and shoot at the player also these green-uniform soldiers. They are stationed only here thus deserve to be in different uniform, probably. To finish stage 3: shoot all of the radars also the soldiers! It's in their line of duty, isn't it?!

Next mission is to assault the command base. Oh look! A rideable tank. Cheers!

There is also a rocket-firing motorcycle and you can do wheelie on it (to shoot diagonally). It's quite obscured by the backside of the tank. When you are on bad blood (i don't prefer using term 'bad ass') tank, why would you want to pick the motorcycle? The answer is obviously no. Stick to the tank that can shoot spreading explosion shell (as you can see in this screenshoot)! Awesome, ain't?! The drawback is: the main cannon have quite long cooldown between firing. Also when the tank is moderately damaged, the main cannon is destroyed and no longer be functional.

Here comes boss of stage 4! I think this is the center of the command base. It consists of 2 flamethrower turrets and 3 of whatever that things are. I can't tell what they really are, i'm sorry. Thing i know is: they have glass screen that looks like eye part and void that looks like mouth part. Also sometime they hide in steel curtain and other time show themselves. I bet you have the gist to deal with this boss. Blast those turrets and that daft-punk-looking things whenever they show up! Also watch out for those suicide bastards!

On stage 5, i must destroy enemy fortress. I manage to secure a laser turret but no enemies left here even though there are bunch of them (including the previous turret occupant) a few seconds ago. Do you experience in FPS shooter games (one of them is Return to Castle Wolfenstein) that when you take a turret, enemies will respawn to allow you to mow them down and feel satisfied manning the turret? Well, this Gunforce moment is the exact opposite of that.  

After riding a raft for a while, passing through enemy's battleship, then drop down to a dock, you meet the stage 5 boss here. Only 4 turrets? Don't be fooled! Here is just its first phase. Worth to mention that those turrets are small target thus i had hard time to destroy them.

After those turrets go boom, the structure fall a bit and here comes the second phase. So i have to destroy 2 bazzoka turrets and the orb with 5 mini cannon. I think this boss is the advanced version of the first stage ones. So, right corner area seems quite safe to me.

The last mission: underground base infiltration. After i run'n'gun the surface section of this base, i take elevator to go down (the target is in underground, duh) and have some elevator action. I have to aim down to make the elevator descend. Such a stupid elevator system. Imagine if you take a elevator and you have to stare up to make it ascend or stare down to make it descend instead press the floor button that you want to go. Awkward!   

After i descend to this bottom area, there is wall with many many turrets ready to pop up and shoot me. I can't make joke about firewall here because the turrets is firing laser not spouting flame. But dodging lasers is easier than dodging flame jets. So i'm fine with that. Still running & gunning through wall that often pop out laser turrets that have the same quantity with ones in 60% section of Deathstar isn't easy task.

In this screenshoot, i like to show you another new type of enemy. Those steel egg with 4 legs are kamikaze-bot. They eager to meet your shin then explode instantly. Unlike the running guys with rocket, they move really fast. Also they don't deserve any promotion because they are just robots. Is that rude assessment of robot discrimination? I take that back. I'm trully sorry to any reader-bot that happen to read this.

 Then, i take this walking machine and shoot laser at that troop. Ha! Right in the face! This is definitely better than slugnoid for metal slug series. We are gonna be good partner ever, my robot friend.

But i have to leave you here. Irem Enemies had designed this passageway that is too small for you to pass. So sad. TmT

I can't be sad too long here because it's final boss time! You can't make excellent contra-clone own version of contra without battling with alien/strange creature. Can you guess how to defeat this final boss? if your answer: keep shooting the (mother) alien that is attached to the machine in corner top-right. Congratulations! You're wrong. Sure you can shoot that alien to harm it but not in this phase. First, you have to destroy that white part of the machine (that have writing "System" and "Sys"). Why? Because it's final boss, it needs to be dealt more complicatedly. Probably. Also there is newly-hatched aliens try to kill you by shooting laser but you can pass them safely. They come from those birthing pods in the ceiling one by one.

After the machine explode, you can start to shoot directly toward the main alien. It still doing nothing but stare at the soldier and birth new aliens. Until...

... its protective shell is destroyed and it begin to vomit green atomic puke at you hoping that will make you die in disgusting state. Basically, shoot the alien & its children, and occasionally dodge their projectile by jumping or crouching. Soon you will achieve triumph. Strange thing is this final boss is way easier than the stage 5 ones. Maybe the difficulty comes from finding its weakness. But i already give you the hint so no problem, huh?!

After finishing the alien, the hero climb ladder, jump through platforms and few crates, then ride raft leaving the terror island sinks and blow out because reason?

"I have cleared

all stages in Gunforce

I will give

summary about Gunforce"

IMO, Gunforce is like crossbreeding between (Classic) Contra and Metal Slug. That's reasonable because Gunforce is made by presumably same staffs that develop Metal Slug. I can tell the similarity between those 2 games from explosion's visual and scream from dying humans there. Certainly, i recommend this game over Contra even from Contra III and Contra: Hardcorps. Its gameplay is simple yet very good. Maybe someone comment: "But the weaponry are bland unlike Contra". Well, if it's not broke, don't fix it! Gunforce's protagonist doesn't need more complicated or more imaginative weapons because the enemies aren't hectic or difficult unlike the ones in Contra. Even with the standard assault rifle, the enemies will go down pretty easy including the bosses. Also you can ride various vehicle or get in turret in Gunforce. If you fancy run'n'gun game, you should try this one via arcade (emulator) or SNES for more or less 1 hours of blasting action!